Learning from previous developments and designing sustainably
“Success looks great on social media. The reality is usually messier.”
That was one of the underlying truths in our conversation with Liam Wallis, Founder and Managing Director of HIP V. HYPE. Because sustainable development is not just about pretty renders and big announcements. It is about pressure, responsibility, and the constant work of improving systems so the next project is better than the last.
In this episode, we unpack what sustainable success actually looks like when you are building for the future, learning from the past, and trying to stay human in an industry that moves fast and rarely slows down.
The Reality Behind the Highlight Reel
It is easy to look at a development brand online and assume it is all smooth wins and champagne moments. Liam was honest about how misleading that can be. Building a company like HIP V. HYPE is not just about delivering beautiful apartments. It is about solving problems in real time, dealing with constraints, and making decisions that will affect people’s lives for decades.
That gap between perception and reality matters, especially in construction, where the mental load is often carried quietly.
Sustainable Development is Iteration, Not Perfection
One of Liam’s strongest points was the value of continuous improvement. HIP V. HYPE is not chasing perfection on day one. They are building systems that allow them to learn, adjust, and lift the standard over time.
Projects like ParkLife 2 are a good example. The focus is not only on hitting milestones. It is on strategic planning, process improvement, and setting up a development model that can scale without losing its values.
When Lived Experience Shapes Better Design
This conversation was full of practical examples of how lived experience makes projects better. Liam talked about raising a family in past developments and how that changes what you notice. You stop designing for the brochure and start designing for real life.
One simple example was bike storage. Putting bike parks directly on apartment levels sounds minor, but it solves a daily friction point for residents. That is the kind of detail that makes sustainable living easier, not just more virtuous.
Designing for Performance and the Long Game
ParkLife 2 is not positioned as “just another development.” It is a culmination of lessons learned, with a clear push toward high performance outcomes. Liam shared their goal of an eight and a half star NatHERS rating, which signals a commitment to comfort, efficiency, and lower operational costs for residents.
This is where sustainability becomes tangible. Better thermal performance. Smarter energy decisions. A building that supports people to live well, not just live inside it.
Experience is Belief
Another standout idea was the HV Hotel. Liam’s view is that you can talk about high performance homes all day, but until people experience them, it stays abstract.
The hotel was created as a way for people to feel what sustainable design actually delivers. Comfort. Quiet. Better indoor conditions. It also creates a feedback loop, because real user experience becomes data that informs the next iteration.
Community Does Not Happen by Accident
HIP V. HYPE’s focus is not only on the building. It is the community around it. Liam spoke about creating places where residents feel connected and where people see themselves as custodians of their environment, not just occupants passing through.
That kind of community-centric design takes intention. It takes systems. It takes a long-term view.
The Mental Health Piece We Cannot Ignore
We also touched on the mental health reality in construction. The pressure to perform, the long hours, the financial risk, and the emotional load can stack up quickly. Recent events have reminded many of us that this is not a side issue. It is part of the industry.
If we want to build better buildings, we also need to build better support systems for the people doing the work.
Sustainable success is not just about sustainable materials or higher star ratings. It is about building a better way of working, designing for real life, and creating places that support better lives.
Liam’s message was clear. The future of development is not only about what we build. It is about how we build, who we build it for, and whether the process is sustainable for the humans behind it, too.
LINKS:
Stay in HV Hotel:
https://hipvhype.com/projects/parklife-2
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Instagram: @sanctumhomes
Website: www.yoursanctum.com.au/
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Website: www.carlandconstructions.com/
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[00:00:00] What is it about this industry that which takes so many lives?
[00:00:02] We live in a social media bubble where everyone sits on Instagram and they just flick and flick, and they see a life that isn't real stick. And just because I see Hamish from Sanken Homes doing these beautiful homes, he must be so good. He must have everything.
[00:00:15] He must have so much money. You don't know what happens behind the scenes. You don't know what's going on. But the perception from everyone in society is like, that's awesome. Like I know people that put stuff up online and it sucks for their life behind the scenes.
[00:00:28] Yeah.
[00:00:28] But the, the, the, the visual of it and the just insecurity to try to keep up with everyone else, I think that's the problem that we have.
[00:00:35] We've been taught to work harder and nine to five isn't enough and it's good a great business to have 30 and 40 employees. Some people are just happy just working by themselves.
[00:00:43] So this is, uh, episode number two with Liam. I think last time we recorded with you, we were actually in the space. Where you are about to start construction for park life too.
[00:00:58] And this is [00:01:00] the reason why we wanted to get you in today because cool, sustainable developments, you know, developers, you know, there's a lot of virtue signaling when it comes to this kind of stuff in the industry. But, um, you know, we've known each other for a long time, seeing what you guys do with hip burst hype.
[00:01:15] Like you guys are actually doing it. In my opinion, from what I see from the outside looking in, uh, you guys are actually doing it so. Thanks for coming back in and now we'd love to talk through Park Life two today and you know what problems you are trying to solve with this particular construction.
[00:01:33] We probably covered it last time we caught up, but I guess our approach to improvement is iterative and I think that's a really, really important point because you know, you can only do so much.
[00:01:47] At any given point in time. One thing that we've actually been working on over the summer, 'cause what is it now? We're sort of early February, construction industry is such a great time to sort of get your head out of operational.
[00:01:59] I know [00:02:00] for me at taking that through three weeks after I am disconnected from work, if I didn't do that.
[00:02:06] Yeah. I'm with my family. I'm at the beach, I'm surfing, I'm bike riding. Right? If I, if I didn't do that, then I wouldn't be showing up and doing what I'm doing now.
[00:02:14] No, it's really important point. And but again, left side, right side, 'cause I'm, I'm not one of these people that, um, reenergizes by switching off, um, uh, I'm a person that reenergizes by flipping between the, the different ways that I think.
[00:02:30] Um, and for me contrast is, is energizing, you know, through January this year. Um, to get, to get back to that original point, we, we were working through Harry from our team, uh, and I were working through a procurement map for us, which is seeking to capture each of the elements of our process through each phase of procurement.
[00:02:50] Um. Because the lifecycle of the projects that we work on are long, you know, it's four to five years from the very beginning to to when you, um, get people moved in and [00:03:00] then a year of commissioning the projects.
[00:03:01] That's pretty good. I thought it would've been longer. I was sort like eight years.
[00:03:05] What that means is you forget stuff.
[00:03:06] Yeah.
[00:03:07] You know,
[00:03:07] so from your four years ago, people from the team come and go. You just mentally can't hold that, that information in your head. So capturing that at each phase of the, a phase of the process and setting up. An ability for us to capture, learn, and iteratively improve. So we review that procurement map quarterly.
[00:03:28] Um, at whatever stage we're in on any given project, it gives us a, a checklist, you know, what, what are, what are we just done? Um, how does that compare to what we've done previously? And what do we have coming up in the next quarter? What do we need to think about? What do we need to plan for and for us?
[00:03:45] With our broader improvement agenda, that's really, really critical 'cause it gives us an ability to be strategic. As opposed to reactive, you know, you're always chasing your tail, but how can you set systems and processes [00:04:00] up in a way that, that you can foresee what's coming next?
[00:04:04] Uh, what, what you just explained is relevant for every business.
[00:04:08] You know, you and I, we had Dave Jennings from Systemology on talking about systems, and this, what you're talking about right now is exactly that. It's like dialing in your systems, not getting it perfect, but then reviewing them and making them better. And, you know, you said that you're. Over the years, hit first hype has been iterative and I know I came here probably before COVID in 2018.
[00:04:28] It was 19. And seeing the people in here change the team growing, like you guys have just changed so much over the years, but it hasn't been like, bam, we're changing. It's been all these small incremental changes and as the business grows, you get better and you review and you analyze and
[00:04:47] you know, again, getting, getting that to what we were talking about.
[00:04:49] I, I fair at the beginning, the pressure, you know, um, the pressure to perform, the pressure to, to, to succeed. You can't do everything at once, [00:05:00] you know, so, um, uh, understanding that, and again, trying to be strategic understanding. One of my favorite quotes go, probably said this last time, that, you know, people overestimate what they're gonna achieve in one to three years.
[00:05:14] They drastically o overestimate that, and then, then you take a 10 year view. And, and we underestimate what we can achieve. I heard that quote like two weeks ago. It's a bit of a Bill Gates quote. Yeah. And he's not, he's not at the moment, but. Strategically, when you think about that, you're like, where were you 10 years ago?
[00:05:31] Oh yeah,
[00:05:32] yeah. Versus where you were today and last year. That was particularly relevant. 'cause looking back to 2015, when we just set up the business to 10 years forward, you are looking at it going Shit. In 10 years you can achieve a hell of a lot.
[00:05:45] Yeah.
[00:05:45] In one year to two to three years, you might look at where you're at and be like, shit, I'm not, I'm not really going where I want to be going.
[00:05:53] Again, that consistency, that the discipline, the confidence, um, and, and not, not beating [00:06:00] yourself up too much. Um, but, but following a vision. You know, you get to that tenure period, you turn around and you're like, shit, set up a business. You know, I've built these things. I've, I've built these relationships.
[00:06:12] I've had children and got it, got a meaningful. A relationship with my partner, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:06:17] If you were to map that, like plot it on a graph, do you think there comes a point where the energy starts feeding into more sort of exponential growth? I know every business is gonna be different, but do you find that once the machine is moving, you know, you talk about systems before, like do you think there's like a critical point where first one to five years you're just figuring out what the fuck you're doing?
[00:06:37] Yeah. And then you get to a point where you've got good people, you've, you've failed and failed and failed, and then you start seeing successes.
[00:06:44] Yeah. This is the other thing. It's like the, the majority of say companies that we see as being uber successful, um, have existed for like seven or eight years
[00:06:57] Yeah.
[00:06:57] Before they'd blow up. It's, there's, there's [00:07:00] some statistic around that that I've read somewhere. And so you, you know, there's really. Big famous companies and you know, these founders that have made it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They've been, you, you know, they've been chipping away somewhere.
[00:07:13] The quote that I heard was Overnight success is 10 years in the making.
[00:07:16] Yeah. It's, it's a great quote. Right, and I can attest to that. 'cause before 2015, seeing up at feet height, there was another 15 years of crying behind that. Right.
[00:07:26] It didn't just, yeah. You just didn't walk in and say, oh, we're here now.
[00:07:28] There was a huge amount of work that went into. You know, I'd identified pretty early on in my career that I wanted to set something up.
[00:07:35] So there was a process of, of building skills building. Relationships, um, broader industry connections and, and that, that was purposeful. But there is something beautiful about perseverance, you know, and backing yourself because, you know, on that daily basis, things can go one of two ways. But if you make a decision that it's gonna go a certain way, well then you're managing that and you're relying on the people around you.
[00:07:59] [00:08:00] You know, I couldn't do any of this without the team. We've got. Finding those people that are, that are willing to feed into that and, and bringing them into that in a meaningful way. You know, we have multiple shareholders in the business now. Um, and really seeking to share the success of VA hype more broadly.
[00:08:20] You know, we've just had, um. Two of our team members buy an apartment in Park Life too. That's so cool. Right? 'cause that's what they believe in the product.
[00:08:29] Wanna go back, you said success before and everyone works with works towards succeeding. What does that look like?
[00:08:35] Well, what today, what does today look like?
[00:08:37] What does success today look like?
[00:08:39] I don't need heat. Um, success for me means having the freedom to, to make the choices that are important to me. Um. And, and I know like I'm not there yet. I'm not where I would like to be in that, in that space. Um, but I'm also [00:09:00] someone that gets, um, I'm motivated by rolling my sleeves up and getting into the, into the detail, right?
[00:09:06] Like I think we said last time when we caught up, success is not. You know, making a bunch of money and, and checking out and, and all of a sudden doing the whole five star thing, that's just not success. But one of the coolest things, uh, about if they hype is, um, again, the ideas, the energy, the work that the team are doing, the scales that the work the team are working at on our own projects.
[00:09:31] Um, bringing Harry into the team last year, an incredibly capable young guy leading. Um, design optimization, design integration on the project, seeking to, to absolutely maximize each dollar that we're spending, um, for the benefit of the future occupants, but also as part of our process of iterative improvement.
[00:09:52] We're just in the process of setting up a building services engineering team, um, to sit alongside our [00:10:00] sustainability team. Adam, we've got a young guy coming into that team. We're just about to make an announcement next week. But to me that's just super exciting. 'cause now we have the capability to design and certify the electrical and mechanical and hydraulic systems.
[00:10:17] So having them work alongside each other Yeah. Is, yeah. Okay. It's everything. Right? Yeah. So it is awesome. We're, we're now gonna be able to design and certify. And me system at scale. Yep. That supports the sustainability ambition of both the business and, and our clients, um, in, in an integrated way, importantly.
[00:10:37] So this, this is the thing at the moment, we're at a stage where kind of over the hump of, of the, the capital expenditure. Now on these systems shows meaningful payback. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Within commercial timeframes. Yeah. And so maybe your traditional engineering consultancies haven't put the effort into understanding the potential.
[00:10:59] Um, [00:11:00] and or are, are too risk averse? Well,
[00:11:03] I mean, they're also just looking, looking within a box though. They're not, they're not looking at the peripheral.
[00:11:08] Yeah. But perhaps, um, we see an immense opportunity.
[00:11:11] Yeah.
[00:11:11] We're really excited, um, to add that service offering
[00:11:14] Park Life two. Yeah.
[00:11:16] What is it, like, what does it look like to someone that's going to live there?
[00:11:19] Um, well Park Life two. The coolest thing about Park Life two is it's, it's basically, um, the love child of. Verizon York, which was the, the, um, our most recently completed project in that at Melbourne. Yeah. 20 apartments, um, and Park Life, which is the, the building that Austin Main Architects, um, had designed and delivered as part of, um, uh, the, the Ngal Housing Precinct Project in Brunswick, Ingal Village.
[00:11:49] Um, and so both sort of best in class projects, both, you know, the year prior to. Uh, I think Park Life completed a year earlier than Verizon, York that both won all the [00:12:00] awards, um, uh, which, which is pretty cool. The great recognition for, for kind of leading apartments in, in the Australian context and really bringing together the learnings for both of those projects into one project, um, has been the exciting thing.
[00:12:14] And Katu and I lived. Uh, at Fries York for three years. So really that lived experience is such a big part of our process. And there are all sorts of elements within Park Life too that, that are a result of our lived experience. Like what?
[00:12:29] Well, I was just about to say, what's so special about these buildings for and New York and and apartment there?
[00:12:33] What, what, what, what distinguishes that from another apartment in the city?
[00:12:38] Well, look, design, sustainability, community. When, when we think about these apartment buildings, it's so much about the spaces in between the actual apartments themselves that drive, um, your experience within the building. So that welcome home moment, how you approach the building, um, the lobby [00:13:00] spaces, um, uh, you know, the entry thresholds into apartments, the communal spaces within the buildings, how they're laid out.
[00:13:08] Um. One. One of the things we took from Raz and York, KATU and I lived on level four and we're the only apartment on that level. There was another A level above us and. With two young kids. One thing that we did, um, was we used to bring our e-bike up onto our level and we'd pack the e-bike up with the kids on our level.
[00:13:27] So right in front of the front door, and then you'd be able to ride the e-bike straight into lift and straight outta the building as compared to having a bike room on the ground floor of the building. Yeah. Having to lug all your stuff down into the bike room, load your bike up and head out. So what we've actually brought into pipeline two is.
[00:13:45] All the bike parks are on each lobby level. So you come directly out of each of your front doors and you bike straight there and you can load it up and go. So for people who are living in the inner north in Brunswick, why do people ride? Um. We [00:14:00] think there's a real convenience element to that, and that hasn't really been done before in a meaningful way.
[00:14:05] It definitely hasn't been done before. The way that we are doing it at Park Life two, that's direct learning from just us having had that experience. And then, and then working with Austin Mannar to build it into the design. Um. There's also kind of unfortunately, you know, security issues shut a big bike room on ground floor.
[00:14:24] It's just a honeypot.
[00:14:25] Yeah.
[00:14:26] Um, for, for people. And, and unfortunately that's been an experience across Melbourne is, you know, you put all the bikes in one place and, and you're gonna, it's
[00:14:36] someone, someone's gonna, it's like, Hey guys, I'll just come grab
[00:14:38] one. Hey, it's a honey pot and it's very, very difficult to protect it.
[00:14:42] So what we're also hoping here is that this is a significantly more secure way. For people to store. Um, you know, bikes and e-bikes these days aren't cheap. No. Um, uh, and, um, you, you know, so that, that's one example. Another example is, you know, the roof yard [00:15:00] frozen your two young kids. Again, constant anxiety of, of, you know, fall risk.
[00:15:06] Um, we, we had a cat fall off the building at Ferraz and York from level six. It was okay. We literally fell off the bills line,
[00:15:15] get going.
[00:15:15] Um, was. Sun baking on a, on a, um, on a ledge and, and slipped off the bill. Like this shit happens. Right. So for us in York, what, what we're built in is almost like an arbor style, um, detail above the roof yard.
[00:15:32] Yeah. Um, with, with some fine stainless steel mesh Yeah. To detail that Austin Mannar Architects used at, at, um, Ingal Village, at Park Life. So it brought these elements in and we feel like that y you know. That would complete the experience. Yeah. Um,
[00:15:51] you should do solar, can you, is that like a, I don't know.
[00:15:53] In the commercial setting, like that would become hard, hard to generate your own energy if you're using roof space.
[00:15:58] There is a [00:16:00] conflict between activating a roof yard and maximizing, um, onsite generation. There's definitely a conflict. You know, interestingly, getting into the details we're right on the eight level 2025 meter effective height limit.
[00:16:14] So we did try and, um, look to, to use solar for sun shading on, on the roof yard. Oh, that'd be cool. Can't do it. It triggered, it basically triggered the, um, ninth level under the NCC safe
[00:16:29] for that. Surely there's a common sense level that would apply to that. Oh, they're doing the right thing here. I know that we don't have common sense in our industry, but someone as a.
[00:16:38] Um,
[00:16:38] someone doesn't get paid for common sense. You know, like we, we create all of this regulation and a whole bunch of people get paid, um, to tick boxes. Um, we're, we're no longer common sense died a while ago in Australia. Unfortunately,
[00:16:54] the solar side of it is I, I actually had energy generation written down here on my, on my, on my, um, pad [00:17:00] here.
[00:17:00] And I, and I would be interested to know how. Lessons from past projects in this current project, and then as you look towards next projects. Yeah, yeah. How, 'cause in my opinion, electrification and energy generation is gonna be such a big relevant thing.
[00:17:15] Yep.
[00:17:16] And I think a selling point for the people that wanna move into these homes,
[00:17:19] ideally electric there, or attempting to be a hundred, a hundred percent yak.
[00:17:22] Yeah,
[00:17:23] yeah, yeah. No, no. Fossil fuel free. So yeah. Look like there's. There's this tension in these sorts of apartment buildings between centralizing new systems and decentralizing new systems. So, and the tension is, um, one of capital expense typically of centralized systems is a little bit higher.
[00:17:43] Typically, you get a trailing benefit, um, uh, lower cost through time.
[00:17:49] Yeah.
[00:17:49] Um, but then, then you get joint, um, usage. So, hot water's a great example, right? So you go with the centralized heat pump, hot water system's gonna cost you more to install [00:18:00] it slightly than decentralized three phase, you know? So
[00:18:05] do, just to, just to clarify, centralized heating is one unit.
[00:18:08] Hot water. Yeah, one hot one. There's one hot water system in the whole boot. And that, that feeds every apartment.
[00:18:13] Yeah,
[00:18:14] yeah,
[00:18:14] yeah,
[00:18:14] yeah.
[00:18:15] So
[00:18:15] it's
[00:18:15] a
[00:18:16] big tank
[00:18:16] when Yeah. There's big buffer tanks, right? So Frozen york's about that. When the system goes down, the whole building doesn't have hot water Now. That that's no different to a single house when a system goes down.
[00:18:27] 'cause in this happens, right? Yeah. Like stuff needs maintenance. There's little
[00:18:32] bit of solidarity there between everyone that's in the apartment. Well, culture.
[00:18:35] Well, there's no difference if that were to happen in living in a single residence versus in her apartment. And the problem is the problem's amplified.
[00:18:42] 'cause you got 60, 60 residences screaming that they've got no hot water, right? So what we find across our sustainability business is. You know, community housing providers, these sorts of people that are managers of large amounts of housing will prioritize the decentralized system that uses more [00:19:00] electricity but is more reliant, arguably not in practice necessarily.
[00:19:06] Um, so. You, you know, what we're always trying to do is work towards the sort of optimized solution, the fit for purpose solution. We are working towards more centralized systems in Park Life. Two. We've got two systems split across 60 apartments.
[00:19:21] Yep.
[00:19:21] Um, that feed into the, the centralized ring name. So if one system goes down.
[00:19:28] You, you'll just have lukewarm, lukewarm, you'll still get a warm shower versus a cold shower. Right? So that, these are the sorts of decisions we're making and we're making it in the detail and we're working. This is the coolest thing about having the building service engineering team come here. 'cause we're, we're now like really getting into the detail.
[00:19:46] Um, we're putting a BMS system in. Our ARBs talk to the BMS, we're gonna be able to
[00:19:52] just, just for, for those planning at home or what's BMS
[00:19:55] Building Management System?
[00:19:56] Yeah, I thought
[00:19:57] it was,
[00:19:57] yeah.
[00:19:57] So basically an ability to scrape [00:20:00] all of the, all of these systems these days. Ping data.
[00:20:03] Yeah.
[00:20:04] To be able to scrape it back to a central location, to create a interface dashboard.
[00:20:09] And for us to be able to track that. 'cause one cool thing we did from Verizon York was. We did 12 months postdoc research and we had our better building sustainability team in there. 12 months. Here's, here's what we designed. Um, how, how, how is it performing against what we designed? Nobody does that. We need to do that way more.
[00:20:30] It'll how you optimize. Um,
[00:20:32] but if you, so if you got dirty management systems, one that just do,
[00:20:36] well, this was the thing. So five years ago when we were designing for as in new org, um, the sort of. Light BMS that's now available wasn't really available slash we didn't have a building services engineering team that was across that information.
[00:20:53] So fast forward five years, the intent there is to scrape more data, to learn more about how the building's [00:21:00] operating. Our building services engineering team came up with a solution. It's 50 grand. We'll, we'll invest that. Um, there is a zero. Kind of immediate commercial incentive to do it. But the longer term play is we wanna scrape more accurate data Yeah.
[00:21:15] To feed into this iterative improvement process that we're trying to develop. That will help us focus on, you know, perhaps we can find a, a better, you know, energy recovery ventilation system at scale. That, that will deal with, say the, the feedback we get from the data. From the building in the future.
[00:21:36] Because? Because is this, is this BMS tracking like humidity levels? Temperature like energy can,
[00:21:42] the RV system will, has capability to track that. The BMS will scrape it back to a single point.
[00:21:48] Yeah.
[00:21:48] So you've got behind on this poster and I actually had ish's question before we started. You've got eight and a half stars that you're chasing.
[00:21:55] It says chasing Matt, hers rating eight and a half stars. Yeah. Is that [00:22:00] a legit, because you've got the data now, is that like an accurate. Eight and a half stars compared to a hypothetical eight and a half stars, if you kind of get where I'm going with this.
[00:22:08] Yeah, look like Nat, hers is really interesting.
[00:22:11] Um, like obviously it's about thermal envelope. So it's about, it's about how, how a building, how, how the, the envelope of the building keeps you, you know, cooler and summer and warmer and winter out basically by how it's insulated. Um, in really, really simple terms and. Uh, yeah, we have set ourselves an ambition of an eight and a half star average, um, target.
[00:22:35] Um, so, uh, some of the apartments are performing at like nine and a half star. Um, I think we, we don't yet have our, our minimum, um, 'cause we haven't done the. Analysis for building permit, which is going through that at the moment. Um, but frozen you up the minimum 7.4 style.
[00:22:54] What's the average apartment complex that might go up of the say it's just, I dunno, [00:23:00] John, Nick door is putting up an apartment complex.
[00:23:02] Yeah.
[00:23:02] What would they just be getting
[00:23:04] average? Well, the NCC currently or is it under the new NC? It's seven, isn't it?
[00:23:09] So
[00:23:10] that, that world bike commercial buildings as in that hers,
[00:23:13] yeah.
[00:23:13] Well, 'cause they residential.
[00:23:15] Yeah,
[00:23:15] I thought, is it n hers? I thought it went to something different. Our
[00:23:17] neighbors, uh, commercial, uh, commercial assets.
[00:23:21] But the cool thing about n hers is one of our, actually, um, Pippa, uh, who I study architecture with, she's leading a research project for CSRO. So she's looking at about, I think it's about 450 apartments, sample apartments that are all. Um, rated. So they're all, um, Nat her rated, so I think built after 2011.
[00:23:44] Um, so she's testing the performance of those apartments right now.
[00:23:49] Wow. That's
[00:23:49] great.
[00:23:49] To gather a data set to feed into the CSRO, um, engine that supports the nat, her modeling.
[00:23:56] Yep.
[00:23:57] Because current mount hers modeling is based on [00:24:00] assumptions. It's not based on actual performance data. So her project will feed in.
[00:24:05] Performance data to further optimize the model. So what we should see is a closing of the gap between what, what we assume at design phase and what actually gets built that that's gonna probably bring so,
[00:24:19] so, so arguably Nat, hers then, or neighbors is gonna be a, a more valuable tool,
[00:24:25] more relevant tool rather than, and her, her project will.
[00:24:29] We will make Nat hers a more, um, accurate tool. Yeah.
[00:24:33] And you've got a, you've got a team that's pretty big on passive house as well. Yeah. And passive house is all about testing and verifying. Yeah. Are you bringing any of that testing and verifying into the Nat Hers model?
[00:24:43] Um, not so much into the Nat Hers model, but into our practice.
[00:24:47] Yes.
[00:24:47] Yeah.
[00:24:48] Um, so we had Marcus Strang from our team run a passive house feasibility model on the preliminary design for Park Life two. We're gonna do that on all of our projects. Um, [00:25:00] uh, unfortunately what we have at Parklet two is a building with quite a large amount of external surface area and two, um, two cores.
[00:25:09] So two vertical circulations. We is very, very difficult, um, to, to achieve, um, standard. But what we're also doing in the detail is persecuting, um, cost benefit analysis on details, on insulation details on. On thermal bridging details for the building, and we're looking at all across a raft of details, bringing that capability from Rob and Marcus in our team to, to analyze whether or not we should be doing certain
[00:25:39] the, uh, we still blow a door test the ha like the, the whole complex.
[00:25:43] Uh, we won't do the whole complex. We'll do a sample of apartments that the team identifies being representative, um, and then we'll, we'll use that data. Um, to, to, to, to feed into the performance data set. We get to help us understand.
[00:25:59] So, so Rob, [00:26:00] Rob and Marcus are using similar approaches to what we're doing when we're certifying a building Yeah.
[00:26:06] For risk analysis really.
[00:26:09] Yeah. Risk and optimization. So we've, we build a dynamic model, um, for, for our project. Um, and we use that. I'd love to see that data. That's cool. Yeah. And so we built that. We don't have to build it. We built it. And then we feed that information in again to our building services engineering team.
[00:26:27] So, um, you, you know, we were making decisions on where to locate windows within apartments. We're running glare analysis, daylight analysis to to help. Um, and we were, we, we were running a collaboration between architecture and performance, so having to make certain decisions on where windows are located, we wanted to make sure that yes, it looked good architecturally, but also it, it didn't mean that we're, we, we were creating a clear problem or reducing daylight too much.
[00:26:55] Yeah. So that caused conflict between say, your design performance team and then the [00:27:00] architect being like, well, we want to talk like this now. No, it doesn't perform though. It
[00:27:03] could cause conflict, but because. We're very clear on our objective, which is to build the best possible apartments we can for the people that live in the building that's driving everything.
[00:27:15] And then, you know, um, a considered compromise is something that, that I reiterate to the team always. You know, we, we always, you know, we're not artists, right? The architects aren't artists, so. We are working through a process of considered compromise. So, you know, we, we are respectful of the way a building looks, right?
[00:27:41] It's, that's the beauty of architecture. It's really valuable. Um, but it also, you can't have the way a building looks leading to perverse outcomes that are reasonably avoidable for occupants.
[00:27:54] Yeah, well, I think I've said this before, you know, by, and this is the challenge I say to architects, you know. Use [00:28:00] passive house is a design constraint, just like a house next door or the size of the block patient.
[00:28:06] Nine. Your nine levels,
[00:28:07] your nine levels. Like it's, it's, if you go right, performance is a design consideration or, or something that's going to drive how something looks, then that's your problem to solve as an architect. That's why you're engaged for the project. Yeah.
[00:28:22] Yeah. What's your, so you, are you gonna live in this one as well?
[00:28:27] We.
[00:28:28] Weren't,
[00:28:29] um, KATU and I, and, and the boys weren't. We kind of got to a point where, where Massimo's in primary school now and we're gonna stay where we are. Um, but what we are doing is we will continue the HGH hotel concept.
[00:28:43] Yeah,
[00:28:43] yeah. From Verizon, New York. So for New York, we had a, we have a two bedroom apartment available to, to, to lease.
[00:28:50] Um, it's been really successful. Um, really that's set up so. One of the hardest things about high performance, you [00:29:00] guys will know this from your day to day, is if you've never experienced it, it's very difficult to value it.
[00:29:06] Yep.
[00:29:06] And so with H Village Hotel, what we're trying to create is an opportunity for more and more people to experience better and therefore to demand it.
[00:29:14] The best analogy I have is hydronic heating You. At back in the day, it was incredibly, when I was working in building, it's very difficult to, to convince someone to pay the extra foot to hard, dry and keying people who had it won't even question the expanse. And once people have installed it, they,
[00:29:33] yeah.
[00:29:33] So they won't change.
[00:29:34] They won't change. Right.
[00:29:35] Yeah.
[00:29:35] The thing about building a hub, forms building is you don't necessarily need hydronic heating anymore. 'cause like you really don't need that heat there.
[00:29:41] Australia.
[00:29:42] Australia, yeah. Um. So same idea, right? We want, we wanted to create this, this apartment that people could stay in.
[00:29:49] It's a busy, noisy location. When you're inside, you're completely insulated from, from that noise and energy. You get a great night's sleep and. You know, it's that light bulb [00:30:00] Baha moment and the number of people we get emailing us afterwards saying, oh my God, I can't believe how well I slept.
[00:30:05] Yep. Yeah.
[00:30:06] Is
[00:30:06] so that's interesting.
[00:30:07] I, I, I, I can't believe this has never clicked for me before and I, I know we have a lot of potential clients listening to this podcast. H how can people book into this hotel? How do they get access to it? Because I, everyone asked me, is there one I can go and stay? And I'm like, yeah, John Burke's got one out in wpo, but there's one in the middle of Melbourne and it's not a passive house, is it?
[00:30:28] But it's got dedicated ventilation, et cetera. Um,
[00:30:30] has a very, yeah. Um, eight plus star, Nat, hers. Um, so yeah. All, all, all of the critical bits. Yeah. Not certified pass fa, so you, you know, um, not, not down to the air change requirements of pass faus, not dealing with, you know, a number of the thermal brake requirements, but you, you know, across the border, high performance apartment.
[00:30:56] Yes.
[00:30:57] Very, very good standard.
[00:30:59] Yeah.
[00:30:59] And, and [00:31:00] importantly. I guess symptomatic of the kind of benefits that you receive,
[00:31:04] but a good experience for someone to go, oh, I can't get it now.
[00:31:07] Blow your mind. And for us, it's been an advocacy tool too. So I think now we're coming on about 700 people have stayed.
[00:31:14] Oh.
[00:31:15] And for us, that's the impact piece, right?
[00:31:17] That's the more people that stay, the more light bulb moments we have, the more people we have out in the market that are coming to you guys coming back to us saying, I want better. We've just used this space as an advocacy piece. So I've had government ministers, uh, in the space from both sides. That's the important bit is like if all we're doing is talking to the people that are already on board, what's the point?
[00:31:40] Yes. From both sides of that. So I've had. The Federal housing minister and of from the opposition in really important. I think
[00:31:48] he's coming on a podcast. We have got, we have one, yeah. Victorian tour. Yeah.
[00:31:51] Take people inside, close the door, lock it. Got a nice bink front door mate. Yeah. [00:32:00] Slam. And that's people like, whoa, you know?
[00:32:03] Yeah. So like, you could, like, you can hear the suc on the door and it's like, and you're like. And then you cannot hear anything. So I did this exercise the other day. I listened to a TED talk and it was all about sometimes just stopping and listening to quiet. So I did it in my house, and my house was, my ears were kind of like ringing.
[00:32:17] 'cause I literally started trying to s like hear anything I put outside,
[00:32:22] like, and I mean, like, trying to hear like a
[00:32:23] bird or I couldn't, I couldn't even hear a car drive past.
[00:32:26] Yeah.
[00:32:27] And it's so quiet.
[00:32:28] That's
[00:32:28] pretty cool. So, um, yeah. Yeah. I, I, I've, it's awesome. The comfort levels are insane. Like, just. You're not fluctuating from hot to cold to hot to cold, like,
[00:32:38] yeah.
[00:32:38] Yeah. I think you do have to get a very light. Do not because it's too hot. Absolutely.
[00:32:42] And what an amazing, Hey, I slept in a sheet through winter.
[00:32:46] Yeah. I, I literally, it was 45 degrees and I'm gonna say, is Nicole's killing me? It's 45 degrees. Last week our house had a 22.5. Yeah. And she's like, she called me, she's like, oh, I'm a little bit too cold.
[00:32:56] I had a shower to warm up.
[00:32:58] I mean, I, I want to give [00:33:00] hit verse. High Hotel, the plug. How
[00:33:01] can someone book into that? Hey, the hotel just on our website's on the, so we're gonna do it again in Brunswick, um, at Park Life two. 'cause again, um. I just, the more people that are staying and experiencing better, the more people we have out in the world that are demanding it.
[00:33:16] And you've got a huge pre-sale rate on Park Life Tour already?
[00:33:18] Yeah, we've sold half the building.
[00:33:20] And is that, you reckon that is related to that evidence of people who potentially stayed, like, have you even studied this? Some who stayed? They go, no, I want one. I'm buying it because of that experience.
[00:33:29] Yeah, like we've had. To a couple of people. It's
[00:33:32] crazy. Um, but that just pays for itself in itself.
[00:33:34] Yeah. Well, but the other cool thing is too, we also have the ability to offer people a stay. So if they're thinking of buying and park left too, we can give them a night at South Melbourne to say, Hey, go and check it out.
[00:33:44] Alright. If there's any content listening to this and you are on the fence of whether or not you wanna build with Sancton Homes, mention this podcast and I'll pay for you to go and stay in hit first High Hotel.
[00:33:54] And also like. You know, we want you to come in and we don't mind if you run [00:34:00] into residence within Verizon, New York and have a conversation.
[00:34:04] We're not trying to hide anything, you know? Yeah. You'll have, you'll meet people, you can stay the night, you'll meet people who live within the building. It's their home. And you know, the important thing to acknowledge here is like you're killing yourself if, if you think everything's perfect, it's just not reality.
[00:34:22] But that's. Not the point. The point is that, um, you know, the intent from hippy hype is to achieve the best possible outcome We can. We do everything we possibly can to set, set buildings up for success. And what we end up having is a group of really great people who come in and become custodians of the building, and they're there to take care of the building and build community amongst themselves through time.
[00:34:44] We're here to. To create the settings for that, that to evolve through time and you'll meet some really great people in the building at Raz and it's an awesome community.
[00:34:53] Dove the people that live there and go, I don't think you're right for this community.
[00:34:58] We sell our own projects. [00:35:00] Um, so Cartier is head of sales.
[00:35:02] She, that's her gig. I kind of do the building thing. She sells and she's part of the community management,
[00:35:08] actually wanted to get her on, but I, she's not here at the moment. I was actually wanted to have a chat to her about that real estate versus the traditional approach.
[00:35:14] Yeah, look, she's got a really interesting perspective on this and she's, she's really great with that side of things.
[00:35:19] And, you know, look, no, we don't curate perhaps from time to time. You know, we're a little bit sold yet, actor people who stand out as perhaps not being a great fit. But all of this is self-selecting as well, right? Like we market a certain way, we speak a certain way. If that doesn't appeal to you, you're not, you're not coming to us
[00:35:40] and
[00:35:40] you're getting a, a cross section of own occupiers and investors,
[00:35:44] uh, of the, of, of Park Life Two, are they, are they all owner occupies?
[00:35:50] Yeah. Of. The 30 sales 29 are owner occupiers. One investor is a family friend. Yeah. Okay. And they're buying an apartment for their kids [00:36:00] in 10 years.
[00:36:00] So it's still there since stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:36:02] Hey, that's different game,
[00:36:03] right?
[00:36:03] So yeah, we almost exclusively get owner occupiers, buyers. We don't say no to investors because at the end of the day, we want, we, we just want people who are invested in the building.
[00:36:16] Yep. Buying, whether they're an unfit hiring investor. Yeah, yeah. They wanna buy a quality asset.
[00:36:23] Probably the, the, the reason I asked whether or not there was investors there, probably not more from a, um, you know, trying to encourage capitalism or anything like that, but it's more you've got this rental market out there that doesn't necessarily have an opportunity or have the means to buy something like this.
[00:36:40] Oh, yeah. And is there an opportunity for them to rent one of these? And that only comes about by either. You know, you guys keeping some and renting it, or then an investor coming in and renting it out.
[00:36:50] From a purely commercial perspective, better quality assets are gonna outperform the market.
[00:36:56] Yeah.
[00:36:57] So the market average is made up of good and bad, and [00:37:00] you'll land in the middle.
[00:37:01] Right? So whenever you're buying quality asset, you're always gonna outperform the market average. So that makes financial sense. Yeah. And then there are some people who give a shit about if they are going to be, you know, a landlord. They give a shit about the, the renters.
[00:37:18] Yep.
[00:37:18] And so, you know, you're buying a really good quality apartment, like
[00:37:22] from yourself.
[00:37:23] Right. Think
[00:37:23] from a selfish perspective, you're gonna get a better return than average.
[00:37:27] Yep.
[00:37:27] Yeah. By definition.
[00:37:29] Yep.
[00:37:29] And then you're also gonna be doing the right thing. 'cause your renters are gonna have a, have a really high quality, um Yeah. Experience. So like it's, we they're the sorts of investors that Yeah.
[00:37:39] Yeah. Where, which we expect to start.
[00:37:41] Starting in March.
[00:37:42] So because legislation changes in July around developer bonds for
[00:37:47] Yeah. Yeah.
[00:37:47] Does that, does that affect you at all?
[00:37:49] Yeah. It's gonna be part of our process. Yeah.
[00:37:51] Yeah. Okay. So you like, is, is that already enacted or is that coming July one?
[00:37:55] Uh, it's coming, yeah.
[00:37:57] Yeah. Okay. And that's just from my understanding, in [00:38:00] 2% you would have to hold to five years. That's a year. So, which, which is. Why I wanna ask you this is because you said about building better. What I'd love to know is like the average apartment, and we, we won't know this, refuse. And how much of that developer bond's actually being accessed by rectification works compared to yours?
[00:38:18] Um, what, what I know, um, from Fresno, New York, we had no, no major defects,
[00:38:26] which is crazy. Zero. Which is a tossed out too. It's a nice hurdle. Builder.
[00:38:31] Builder and, and our collaborative process. Yeah. So we don't have. We don't have a third party project manager sitting between us and the builder. We project manage the build ourselves.
[00:38:42] Yeah. And culturally, we, we exist through that process to collaborate with the builder.
[00:38:48] Yeah.
[00:38:48] To get the best outcome we can. You know, so there's
[00:38:52] trust, you trust them.
[00:38:53] We, you have to. But we're working together to achieve an outcome. We want the builder finishing on time, if not [00:39:00] early. We want the builder building the best quality outcome we can.
[00:39:04] Um, that's good for our customers and it's good for the builder.
[00:39:07] Well, the market offers you good for your brand.
[00:39:09] At the end of the day, if the builders are losing money, everybody loses. Yeah. Um, and, and if we're sitting there with a stick beating the builder up, how, how, how is that coding our dynamic that's objectives focused to get go.
[00:39:22] Getting back to the objective. We do things like, we put our marketing renders up in the smoko sheds 'cause like there's a lot of people involved in building our buildings. We want the end, we want the cleaner. And this is a little bit idealistic, right? But I want the cleaner, you know, who has a very small part in the process seeing the beautiful end product that we are trying to achieve.
[00:39:46] Yeah.
[00:39:46] And, and I want them in the smoker shed seeing that on the wall. So that, and, and hopefully there's, there's a bit of a rub there, right? Like it's setting a standard. You know, I walk around site, I say good to, to. Guys work, [00:40:00] working on site and going have a chat to people, you know, the actual people that are doing a job.
[00:40:04] I believe that that makes a difference and not everybody's gonna bring that. And that's frustrating at times. Yeah.
[00:40:09] You're never gonna please everyone,
[00:40:11] but,
[00:40:11] but you're also giving everyone the opportunity to though,
[00:40:13] but we, I given them the opportunity to bring their bear. Yeah,
[00:40:16] yeah.
[00:40:16] That's
[00:40:16] what
[00:40:17] I'm
[00:40:17] saying.
[00:40:17] And, and, um, and, and we respect that and, and we build that into our team as well, so that, that, that dynamic with the builder. Mate, we're, we're not there to wrap. Knuckles doesn't work.
[00:40:28] Can you talk about the builder that you've engaged?
[00:40:30] Yeah, we're, we're gonna work with, um, a company called Marks from John.
[00:40:33] Marks.
[00:40:33] We had had a conversation about the builder before we started and, um, you know, it sounds like they're definitely the right builder for the project. And what I'd love to see. More of these bigger builders do off the back of projects like this is see that there is value in these buildings. And I wanna start, 'cause I know you, you're on our case all the time.
[00:40:53] Scale up. Scale up. And I like, sorry, maybe, maybe, but
[00:40:58] yeah, like you, US [00:41:00] resources, like we'd be happy to share out, curious on a smaller scale and be like, yeah, like. They, you are jumping into the deep end to some extent and you kind of take a risk, but the risk is so worth it.
[00:41:09] Well, we're gonna open site in three weeks.
[00:41:11] You should bring 'em along. The whole thing about sustainable alliance, what you guys are doing with this podcast, like capacity building, right? Like what we're trying to do with HVH Hotel capacity building with 700 people now that have experienced better a capacity building in the industry. Um, knowledge building, capacity building.
[00:41:28] But Mark's gone look, they won the tender. We ran a tender. We have four builders tender. And it's remarkable. You know, Melbourne's a relatively small ecosystem. Um, it's remarkable how much difference you get even across four builders. And we selected the four builders strategically.
[00:41:46] Yep.
[00:41:46] Because they had had experience across varying scales of the kind of project that we were seeking to build.
[00:41:53] Our investment partner for the project, I should say, is Save us property. So we have quite a stringent um. You, you [00:42:00] know, procurement requirement through the tender phase. Um, but we ran that process and, and, you know, our, our, our assessment matrix is not just price. Price is a bit and it's weighted, um, and it's well below 50%.
[00:42:14] Um, we've got a reality there. And if we can't get to the price project doesn't go ahead, but. Y, you know, demonstrated capability and sustainability, safety, culture, these sorts of things come into our selection criteria seriously and meaningfully.
[00:42:29] Yep.
[00:42:30] And you know, probably one of the things that stood out for Scon is, you know, that they built now a number of nine GAL projects.
[00:42:38] And through building those projects, they've built capacity that were one of only two of the four builders that could demonstrate having. Dealt with HRVs at Yeah. Any meaningful scale. Yeah. They were the only builder that could demonstrate having dealt with a high performance window package at the scale, we need to build that.
[00:42:58] Okay. Um, they [00:43:00] were, again, one of only two builders that could demonstrate having, having achieved, um, tightness performance. Four builders strategically selected, who've had experience. Yeah. The, we've still got a long way to go, particularly in the HIV space. At scale, there's like plugger all capability in the industry that will change.
[00:43:21] So the projects that we're doing, park Life two gets built. Uh, you know, we know through our sustainability business, there are quite a few homes, Victoria and community housing projects being built right now. Mm-hmm. That in two to three years time will mean that there's mechanical subcontractors out in the market who've delivered a hundred apartments with HRA.
[00:43:41] Okay. Um, there are trades that have installed that at an individual level. There are project managers with the experience of managing a team to implement tests, verify those systems. It's all about capacity building in the industry, you know, um, takes time. But again, getting back to that point. One to three years [00:44:00] versus 10 years.
[00:44:01] Yeah. So what's the most important thing that we didn't discuss, discuss today, that we should have talked about?
[00:44:06] We could sit here for like three, four hours and we wouldn't stop. There's so much to talk about in the industry and like we didn't even really get onto what you guys are doing and how we can translate that and scale it.
[00:44:18] Um. Uh, you know, the information like bringing people onto site the way that you guys do is awesome. I really like that. I think that's so powerful.
[00:44:30] Can I do that with Park Life too and do an open house? Like it might be a little bit more
[00:44:33] Oh yeah. We still do it with, with, um, for us in New York,
[00:44:36] in construction though.
[00:44:39] It's hard, it's a whole different level.
[00:44:40] It's a safety thing, but like, could you do like a certain section of it to be like, guys, this is what industry can do because we do it at ours.
[00:44:48] I think we can do an industry focused one and maybe we could have a think about doing that together, opening it up more broadly.
[00:44:54] All sorts of challenges.
[00:44:56] Um, yeah. Yeah. But I think an industry focus one, find that that's what up, [00:45:00] because you can think, you see if you, if you get a half a dozen or government, half a dozen other developers to show them that, that, that, that the nuts and bolts of this. Uh, it's still a building. It's just different elements.
[00:45:10] Yeah. There's definitely a role there. Um, we, we do that more indirectly through our sustainability business. So we do that strategically. We, we actively bring clients in and show them Yeah. Um, through the process. But I do, yeah, that's pretty good idea. '
[00:45:24] cause you could just, like, you'd reach out to all the government officials in that area, all the council members, like a few builders, a few architects, like, and just be like even your biggest competitor if there's one
[00:45:35] Yeah.
[00:45:36] Come along. I wanted to talk about this.
[00:45:38] I wanna get you guys into, um, into trade schools. I wanna get you guys giving presentations at TAFEs and we've, so, so SBA has, uh, very slowly working on some
[00:45:50] really good connections in with, um, Melbourne Polley. Yep.
[00:45:53] Uh, in the, the back off the base of our first chat with him.
[00:45:57] So I know someone on the board at Melbourne, Holly May, maybe we could [00:46:00] connect a couple of dots there and Yeah. That happening a bit quicker. We've got a c. Well, I met the CEO and we were dealing with, I can't remember his name, but yeah, it's, it's, it is old guy. It's happening. Yeah, it's happening. We had him on the podcast.
[00:46:12] Yeah.
[00:46:13] I won't mention names on the podcast, but, um, what, let's keep chatting about that. 'cause I think like young people, you know what you guys are doing. You're so inspiring and, and, you know, charismatic and great leaders and, you know, getting you guys in front of some young people instead of, you know, old crusty lecturers.
[00:46:32] Um.
[00:46:33] The, that's a legislation change though, that the moment to, for us to go talk, we need to go do a diploma in
[00:46:39] education. We, if we, if we just go do with this lecture. No, not at all. Really? No. That, no, no. We, yes. Lecture. Um, li how, if people wanna buy one of those, how do they, how do they, how do they go about doing that?
[00:46:50] Again, our website's the best place. Um, yeah, we'd love to, we'd love to hear from people. There's, um, all the information, um. Give us a [00:47:00] shout out. Kaia and, and, and or Kirsty will come back and Yeah. And people can have a chat.
[00:47:04] So, so these are high performance, they're high star rating. They're all electric.
[00:47:10] They're E RVs. They're fresh, they're healthy,
[00:47:14] you
[00:47:14] know,
[00:47:15] it's hit be hype.com. You,
[00:47:17] uh, just.com bill. It'd be hard.com. Um, all of the above. But look, we, the other thing I should say about this project is, and probably one of the things that makes it. Ultimately so unique is it's on a park. So Clifton Park's on your doorstep.
[00:47:31] There's nothing between you and the park. So you get kind of the best of both worlds. You get to live in a high performance apartment, um, with a park on your front doorstep. So the park is your backyard. That's park life. That's US Park Life. That's where Diana comes from. The other thing is too, we're our studio where we're currently sitting doing this podcast, we're moving our team into the ground floor of Park Life too.
[00:47:55] Oh, awesome. Um, that's another thing for us, like anchoring the building. You know, [00:48:00] we're not a developer that cuts and runs, we're developer. That takes a position in the life of the buildings.
[00:48:07] Yes.
[00:48:07] Her job is to, her job is to hand the building over to the occupants. They're ultimately the custodians, but.
[00:48:15] We're part of that process, um, and having an opportunity to have our studio in the building, that'll be a really big part of our continued learning process as well. Yeah,
[00:48:23] yeah. So I'm gonna jump on to our MEGT Mindful Moments sponsored by MEGT, Australia's largest of just apprenticeship provider.
[00:48:33] Now, Matt, I asked you before we started this podcast whether or not Youi feel comfortable talking about this, and I think, um, mental health is something.
[00:48:44] That is so important broadly in our world, but I think it's actually a big problem in our industry. And you've experienced something in the last 24 hours, which, you know, I'm deeply [00:49:00] sorry for. And, um, yeah, if you wanna share, so
[00:49:04] I won't go into too much detail. We lost one of our tradees, uh, sadly lived their own life for the day.
[00:49:10] Um, very close to us, so. What I wanna get out of this is like we, why do we start this podcast ish?
[00:49:18] I think the biggest, one of the biggest motivations was it's called the mindful Builder. You know, we were coming on, you know, you, you've have a history of anxiety. I've got a history of anxiety. You know, I know that everyone I talked to in the industry at one time or another has had a problem with anxiety or mental health, and I felt like we, I guess the position in our.
[00:49:39] That we have in the industry. We had a, a microphone to like talk to this and share our experiences.
[00:49:45] Yeah. So I, coming to this, we're not doing enough, um, as an industry, as a group, like is a huge issue and a lot more needs to be done. So apprentices, um, this is mainly focused on you guys, [00:50:00] but it's okay to ask for help.
[00:50:02] Like, doing your apprenticeship is tough. It's not easy. It's, it's difficult. You'll want to give up. I wanted to give up in my third year. Your third year, I would say the hardest year of all your apprenticeship years. Um, there are resources everywhere for you to reach out to should you need help, and that doesn't need to be directly to your boss.
[00:50:20] Family, friends, don't be afraid to speak up. Like we've even had, Hamish and I, we've had people reach out, out to us directly through our social media channels, through the podcast to be like, I need help. What do I do? Um, so there are resources everywhere that you can reach out to and ask for help. Um, don't be afraid to do that because I promise you that you are loved, that there's people around you that will support you.
[00:50:44] And then this could be triggering for people and it could be com confronting, but we need to stop hiding behind these issues, like more needs to be done. Um, you're someone in the government level listening to this. You need to be better and do more. Um, we need to [00:51:00] solve this, not just tick a few boxes on a piece of paper that make it sound fine and damning because there's people hurting every day.
[00:51:06] And I think on a personal level, like just to give a TX a shout out, so TX it stands for, this is a conversation study. You might have seen them in a really loud shirts by no way affiliated with this podcast at all, but they have a free. Counseling service, and they, they, my team
[00:51:22] right yesterday,
[00:51:23] they exist to the blue collar workers who unfortunately have a higher, statistically, have a higher chance of taking their own lives.
[00:51:29] So they have an amazing, um, uh, free resource for you
[00:51:34] and yeah, like life can get better. You just gotta work at it. Um, so, um, don't wanna put a downer on it, but I'd rather talk about real stuff That's true. And not hide behind that. And that's what both me and you set out at the start of this podcast is not only just talk about building better, but building mindfully in the mindful moment, I think sort of sums it up.
[00:51:54] So cool. Yeah.
[00:51:56] No, who share what you're doing. It's good. Um, it's great to, to have some leadership [00:52:00] within the industry and, and like we, like we said, like dis disseminating learnings and ideas and passion and. And, you know, dealing with really challenging subjects. Um, yeah, unfortunately we're just living in a world where, where everyone's at each other's throats, you know, it's like just kind of taking a little bit of a step back and, and, um, and living in the moment a little bit.
[00:52:25] Um,
[00:52:26] we're all people at the end of the day, regardless of which side you sit on.
[00:52:30] Mm.
[00:52:31] Yeah, I, nothing, we just leave to that.
[00:52:32] Yeah.
[00:52:32] Thank you.
[00:52:33] Thanks guys. Thanks.